~$15 million later

[tankcommander 1]

In light of the recent success of the Dayz alpha and reports of a further year before beta, can the team afford to increase their productive strength? From what I've learnt, the current team consists of roughly five core members which on occasion outsources various content. Logic would suggest that if you boosted your team numbers, you'd then be able to push a higher quality release sooner for a game which has already experienced long release delays. Having sold 500,000 copies for an alpha, would that swell of income be able to fund higher level production for a game that is essentially a mod?

[Aussie Bogan 350]

Yeah i wish ;)   They are all living it up, why do they need us anymore :(

 

Edited December 26, 2013 by Aussie Bogan

[Lemonater47 11]

Well it depends If you hire a group of monkeys or trained specialists.

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

Throwing money at a problem does not immediately solve it. Software development takes time. Learn some patience people.

 

Also, your "numbers" seem to be wrong. There might be five publicly active devs, but they have an entire office suite to themselves. They've already been taking on a bunch of new hires. Rocket even said they were getting new people back in September. I can assure you, there are more than five people working on this project.

Edited December 26, 2013 by SalamanderAnder

[Diggydug (DayZ) 331]

I'd rather it take as long as anticipated with the team who got us here than bring in a ton of people who aren't really familiar with DayZ and the DayZ scene.

[Aussie Bogan 350]

Throwing money at a problem does not immediately solve it. Software development takes time. Learn some patience people.

 

Although hiring or increasing developments productivity will help the process significantly.

[nerfed 8]

This is one of the most common misconceptions about programming/design.

A larger team doesn't mean faster or higher quality work. Once you have one person for each core aspect, hiring more people for those tasks is unnecessary.

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

Although hiring or increasing developments productivity will help the process significantly.

 

Yes but as I said, rocket has in the past publicly talked about how they were bringing all sorts of new staff including programmers, animators, artists, mappers, ect. Even with a large workforce, programming is a complex and challenging process which takes time. There's lots of design, trial and error, architecture which must be written, and bugfixing. Even then, too many hands in the pot can spoil the sauce.

[yorkie065 78]

The more people you throw into the development, the harder it is to communicate the original concept and achieve it. People always have their own ideas for different concepts which can be great, but when your making a game that is very different to a lot of other games at the time, it can also be a very bad thing. I personally think the small team that they have is great for the game. And with the patches coming out regularly (when it's not holiday season) I'd be happy for it to take a while as long as the end product stays true to the original concept. 

Edited December 26, 2013 by Yorkie065

[Thoric 2]

It's more like $10 million, since Steam's cut is 30%. And then there's taxes and fees... I expect the game to keep selling well though, as long as they keep updating.

 

A team expansion might be good to hear, but it's all up to them. It's better to stay lean and mean when you're looking to support a game for a long time.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Thoric

[twingunz 308]

I've said this in a similar post and i'll say it again the money made would be considered profit the game already has a budget and they work within it shareholders and CEO's want to make money from this game it's a business and sales are profit.

That said if it's deemed successful enough by what they were expecting then hopefully they increase the games budget, but more than likely it wont, again they make these games to make money not break even or just make a few dimes.

[Aussie Bogan 350]

This is one of the most common misconceptions about programming/design.

A larger team doesn't mean faster or higher quality work. Once you have one person for each core aspect, hiring more people for those tasks is unnecessary.

 

So could you help me understand  how massive corporations (Cod/bf3) pump out usually pretty polished games within a year...

 

The standalone has taken a long to get to where it is, many people would argue we are still at the basics in X amount of years of development. Then the usual

response is .. Sorry guys we are working as hard as we can (I don't doubt) but only have a small team and limited funds. <<<< This shouldn't be an issue now so why not increase productivity at any means possible?

 

Sorry guys not attacking anyone personally just merely trying to understand the process ;)

[Mazzar 231]

Throwing money at a problem does not immediately solve it. Software development takes time. Learn some patience people.

 

Its a fun saying. But its wrong. Throwing money helps.

[Aussie Bogan 350]

Yes but as I said, rocket has in the past publicly talked about how they were bringing all sorts of new staff including programmers, animators, artists, mappers, ect. Even with a large workforce, programming is a complex and challenging process which takes time. There's lots of design, trial and error, architecture which must be written, and bugfixing. Even then, too many hands in the pot can spoil the sauce.

 

I hope your right ;)

 

point taken ..

[Ozelot (DayZ) 394]

This is one of the most common misconceptions about programming/design.

A larger team doesn't mean faster or higher quality work. Once you have one person for each core aspect, hiring more people for those tasks is unnecessary.

Uhm, actually it does. It really really does.

[tankcommander 1]

Awesome, wasn't totally sure about the team figures atm. 

 

With increasing numbers, it's not necessary they are all across the dayz 'scene'. Animators, modelers, programmers etc can be assigned tasks that don't require months of core involvement. It's fairly common for a lot of studios to bring in new blood around crunch time development in order to push a release. This could be outsourcing or internal recruitment.

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

The problem with programming in particular is that when lots of different people write little pieces of code, it can be even harder to make those little bits work together than it was to write them in the first place. Little bugs can aggregate and create huge problems and incompatibilities which can grind progress down to a stand-still. And for the record, shooters like CoD and BF3 are not attempting anything close to what DayZ is trying to accomplish. They aren't really comparable projects. Not only does DayZ have to have pretty realistic physics and simulation, it also has to store literally every little thing you do to a database so it can be persistent, on an enormous landmass.

[Aussie Bogan 350]

 And for the record, shooters like CoD and BF3 are not attempting anything close to what DayZ is trying to accomplish. They aren't really comparable projects.

 

True true.. :D

[Avengerki 20]

So could you help me understand  how massive corporations (Cod/bf3) pump out usually pretty polished games within a year...

In general those games were being developed alongside the previous release or just after they got a working product. Also alot of these games tend to use the same base engine with some minor improvements to decrease time to market. They spend more time on artwork and in game graphics over improving the base engine. The if it aint broke don't fix it mentality basically.

 

Taking a base engine and modifying it more torwards a specific concept can take more time over general improvements. The change from being a mod to a stand alone may seem like it shouldn't be all that much but now they are going in and trying to implement the portions of the mod into the base engine while increasing the security measures to prevent cheating. This can take time and sometimes when you implement something that should be a piece of cake it really turns into a forest of razor wire.

[gamer222 86]

My guess on final release it will be 2 million survivors community grows really fast every day and numbers are higher....

[Aussie Bogan 350]

In general those games were being developed alongside the previous release or just after they got a working product. Also alot of these games tend to use the same base engine with some minor improvements to decrease time to market. They spend more time on artwork and in game graphics over improving the base engine. The if it aint broke don't fix it mentality basically.

 

Taking a base engine and modifying it more torwards a specific concept can take more time over general improvements. The change from being a mod to a stand alone may seem like it shouldn't be all that much but now they are going in and trying to implement the portions of the mod into the base engine while increasing the security measures to prevent cheating. This can take time and sometimes when you implement something that should be a piece of cake it really turns into a forest of razor wire.

 

Informative thanks ;)

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

How they manage such short delays? well there is the EA way "The managers stopped even talking about a day when the hours would go back to normal." -> http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html?nojs=1

Edited December 26, 2013 by Lady Kyrah

[Jaygoon 240]

So could you help me understand  how massive corporations (Cod/bf3) pump out usually pretty polished games within a year...

 

The standalone has taken a long to get to where it is, many people would argue we are still at the basics in X amount of years of development. Then the usual

response is .. Sorry guys we are working as hard as we can (I don't doubt) but only have a small team and limited funds. <<<< This shouldn't be an issue now so why not increase productivity at any means possible?

 

Sorry guys not attacking anyone personally just merely trying to understand the process ;)

 

Polished product?  Have you played BF4 or Fifa 14 or Rome Total war 2  lmao, They far from polished, and yet Fifa 14 is a full release lol

[Aussie Bogan 350]

Polished product?  Have you played BF4 or Fifa 14 or Rome Total war 2  lmao, They far from polished, and yet Fifa 14 is a full release lol

 

Mate i have played a few of them and i can tell you there polished when comparing it to SA. ;)

[m.cab 83]

i think he's right. The mismanagement from bohemia and rocket is obvious!

They should immediately hire every single technican, programer and designer from google, microsoft and apple to push this game to its limit. When done, rocket is supposed to release Half Life 3, doom 4, fallout 4 and the iphone 6, together with his new operating system (Winlux 9). All those products are going to be released on a new holiday called "Rocket day" which replaces 24th of December since Rocket is the new jesus anyway. Of course all those actions are performed at the rocket headquaters which are (obviously) on the moon! GET THAT SHIT DONE ASAP ROCKET! :facepalm:

 

 

Sorry, i think i got a little bit carried away there! (;